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Topic: Churches in NYC (Read 2819 times)

Hi,I'm sure this post is frequent, but I feel that this is one of the few and best ways. I'm converting to Orthodoxy in NYC but it's hard to find English speaking churches. Therefore, does anyone know one that is in English and how I get in contact with someone to start. For the record, in the mean time I have been attending OCA and ROCOR Parishes. thanks

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"If you give the average Frenchman a choice between a reforming president who would plug the country's huge deficit and a good cheese, he would probably opt for the cheese." - Stephen ClarkeI think the French may be on to something here.

If you look outside the OCA & ROCOR, you'd probably be able to find some Greek or Antiochian parishes.

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Now where were we? Oh yeah - the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didnÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

Thank you all for the messages and they were helpful. Actually I ran accross the ACROD last night, but I've never heard of them. Does anyone have any experience with them or know anything of them? Thanks

Daniel

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"If you give the average Frenchman a choice between a reforming president who would plug the country's huge deficit and a good cheese, he would probably opt for the cheese." - Stephen ClarkeI think the French may be on to something here.

Of course, dantxny.Their website has a short history. Basically this Orthodox church consists of a diocese under the Ecumenical Patriarch which was formed in the 1930s by (at that time) 37 Byzantine Catholic parishes who became Orthodox. It is a Slavic church by ethnicity and like most Orthodox churches here experience varies by parish as to how 'ethnic' the congregation is. My wife is in this church (I am Greek Orthodox) and we attend services at her English-speaking ACROD parish 75% of the time so she won't be too challenged by the Greek used in my parish (which ironically is now almost 100% English).Others here I am sure can fill in further.

Demetri

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"Religion is a neurobiological illness and Orthodoxy is its cure." - Fr. John S. Romanides

The list is ok as a resource, but it would be wise to not pay too much attention to the ecclesiology expounded there. From the webpage given above:

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Although not in itself in communion with most of the other Orthodox jurisdictions, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) is in communion with the Church of Serbia and Church of Jerusalem, both of which are in communion with the other autocephalous and autonomous Orthodox churches, thus giving it semi-legitimate status.

Given that belief, it turns out that many saints throughout our history were only "semi-canonical" and "semi-legitimate" (Sts. Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Photius, Mark of Ephesus, etc.)! And that's not the only example of questionable ecclesiology; there's also stuff like:

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This is an excellent definition of "canonical" from the web site of a canonical Eastern Orthodox parish church: "Christ the Saviour Church is a member of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese, a canonical, autonomous jurisdiction of the Eastern Orthodox Church, headquartered in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and under the protection of His All-Holiness, BARTHOLOMEW I, pictured here. As 'the Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch,' every canonical local or worldwide Orthodox Church is in full communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch." -Source

That is an error called neo-papal-patriarchalism, and it has been trying to force it's way into Orthodox thought for over a thousand years. But the Orthodox Church has never taught that a Church has to be in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate (or any other See or Bishop) to be Orthodox. Rather, the Orthodox belief is, as St. Justin Popovich said:

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For the bishop and the faithful gathered around him are the expression and manifestation of the Church as the Body of Christ, especially in the Holy Liturgy: the Church is Apostolic and Catholic only by virtue of its bishops, insofar as they are the heads of true ecclesiastical units, the dioceses. At the same time, the other, historically later and variable forms of church organisation of the Orthodox Church: the metropolias, archdioceses, patriarchates, pentarchias, autocephalies, autonomies, etc., however many there may be or shall be, cannot have and do not have a determining and decisive significance in the conciliar system of the Orthodox Church. Furthermore, they may constitute an obstacle in the correct functioning of the conciliar principle if they obstruct and reject the episcopal character and structure of the Church and of the Churches. Here, undoubtedly, is to be found the primary difference between Orthodox and papal ecclesiology. - On the Summoning of the Great Council of the Orthodox Church

I apologize if this seems overly polemical. I can understand discussions of canonicity and validity, as for example between the OCA, MP, and ROCOR. But I think neo-papal-patriarchalism is a whole different creature.